I Checked the Weather: Sweetwater Creek

Hike number two. Because of the weather outlook, I moved the hike of Blood Mountain to next weekend. I didn't think it would be fun to summit the second highest point in Georgia while clouds are blocking the view. Instead, a short hike looked more appealing. Sweetwater Creek State Park is a place I've been before, but its been a couple of years. I suggested it as an option, and my roommate and her boyfriend were the only ones that decided to commit. So, we all headed with Brandy on I20 west.

There is apparently a Sweeetwater Park with tennis courts and baseball fields that is off Thorton Road North of I20, and it seemed nice, but it is not the trail head. Sweetwater Creek State Park is South of I20 off Thorton Road. So when you Google map it, make sure its South of I20, or get directions here. There wasn't very much parking when we arrived, which usually means that it will be a busy hike. We set out on the red trail, the most popular at this location, with the plan to continue on to the white trail, for a total of 2.5 miles. Find the trail map here.


Difficulty

I've decided to measure difficulty based on a scale of so easy I could do this hung over to so difficult I can't go out for even one drink tonight.

Sweetwater Creek during the red trail

This one was easy enough you could do it hung over. The first part of the trail is pretty well marked, and there are lots of man made lookouts. Then you have to follow some stairs down to get closer to the creek and you follow the creek for another three quarters of a mile, or so. We got tripped up at this point because we didn't realize that we had to go down the stairs to stay on the trail, we were all of a sudden on the blue trail. We realized our error, went back, and followed the red dots. As you follow along the river, its important to be cautious while going in, out and over rocks. At the end of the trail, you can go back on the blue trail, or take the white trail. We took the white trail because it is longer and I hoped there would be less people on it; which turned out to be true. It started with a scenic walk by a small creek that eventually led to a wide road. For a little while, there is a nice steady incline on the road that was noticeable, but not too difficult. Once we left the creek, It was pretty much a wide, flat path the rest of the way. The trails were all well marked, except for that one spot I mentioned earlier, but we could have not been paying attention.

Natural Beauty:
I am now basing natural beauty on a scale from a paved trail to  completely forgetting about the civilized world.
The trails were well maintained, and had wooden structures for you to stand on and look out to the creek below. This creek was not small. I don't know that much about river qualifications, but it seems like it could be in the running. There are small boulders poking up through the water at many points in the creek creating rapids. The sound of the water running is very soothing throughout the hike. However, since the red trail is the most popular trail at this park, it was very crowded and we would often have to wait for people near us to get far enough ahead.

Brandy running down the white trail

Once we got to the white trail, it was not as magnificent as the red trail, but the number of people dropped drastically. We felt a little more secluded, until the trail turned into what seemed like a logging road. They were in the process of thinning out the forest for ecological reasons, and seeing all of these trees ripped and fallen over did not add beauty to the experience. We didn't know about the ecological thinning, so we just thought that these people were terrible at logging, and we were judging them. There was a little while on the white trail that we felt like we had escaped the hustle and bustle of the city, but it wasn't very long.

 

Dog Friendliness
The scale to determine Dog friendliness is based on Brandy's Mileage for the hike (qualitatively dependent on Brandy's perceived leash time)
Because of the number of people on this hike, I did not feel comfortable having Brandy off of her leash for most of the red trail. The people that had dogs, had them on their leash, so I felt obligated to comply. There were times when we were traversing rocks and the leash was restricting her and my movement and it made me concerned. Also, the lookouts were not made to keep dogs from leaping to their deaths, so as a precautionary measure I would put on the leash while we all gazed at the beautiful creek (Brandy couldn't care less about the view). One woman scowled at me for having Brandy off leash; we too were appalled with her reaction. Although, in her defense Brandy was foaming at the mouth a little at that point. Once we got to the white trail, the hiker traffic decreased and I was able to let her off leash comfortably. For more than half the hike she was free to search for squirrels.

Picnic-ability

The new scale for picnic-abiliy is between eating on the trail while people go around you, to you can layout a blanket and take a nap.

There were lots of wonderful places to have a picnic. You could sit atop one of the many flat rocks poking out of the creek. They were often big enough for two or more people. On the white trail, there were a few spots big enough to lay out a blanket and take a nap. One spot towards the end even had a few benches in a semi circle. We did not stop for a snack this time, but we did have a banana and some trail mix to snack on along the way. If there hadn't been so many people on the red trail, we might have been more inclined to pause for a picnic, but the group ahead was moving forward, and the group behind was enclosing on us, so we felt like we must move onward.

Brandy is way too busy to stop for a photo.

Overall, we had a good time on the hike, and Brandy seemed to have fun despite the leash time. The first half of the hike on the red trail we had a lot of complaints. It seemed to smell like dog poop, and there were so many people it almost felt like a mall on a Saturday. Once the traffic started to thin out, the beauty of the creek became our main focus and we started to appreciate the experience more. I tried to snag a good picture of Brandy, but she doesn't stay still for very long. Even though I am critical of the trails, I am very happy that I got outside and appreciated the exercise and fresh air.
Next week I've recruited a group of people to tackle Blood Mountain. The hike is 8.2 miles total, and we will be having a proper picnic this time. This will be my last hike before I go back to school, where group meetings and assignments will make planning hikes a little more difficult.

Mental Enrichment: Trees haphazardly strewn about a forest in a way that looks like some drunk logger drove through it with the intent to knock down as many as trees as possible, is actually a good thing called ecological thinning.